Romney: "The First Victim Of An Obama Campaign Is The Truth": Do You Trust President Obama
The 2012 election season has shifted from primary politics to the general election. Summer has nearly ended and the Olympics finished. The media will now set their sites on the candidates. General elections generally sours the public as they suffer the endless cycles of attack ads.
Politicians and their campaign managers know that negative ads work. Nobody took President Clinton seriously when he promised to end the politics of personal destruction -- then began destroying the reputation of special prosecutor Kenneth Starr, victim Paula Jones and witnesses Linda Tripp and Monica Lewinsky.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney accused President Obama of sacrificing the truth for a political victory in 2012. Romney said, "It seems that the first victim of an Obama campaign is the truth. It has been sad and disappointing." Romney said this in response to the attack ads against him claiming that Romney would raise taxes. Romney finished with, "We're going to get this economy going, and Mr. President stop saying something that's not the truth."
REALCLEARPOLITICS.COM reports:Question: Thank you, Governor. When my son's boss asked why he wanted the day off, he said I get a chance to see Romney and Ryan. He said, 'You mean that guy that wants to raise taxes.' So what are you going to do to combat the lies that the leftists are telling about you?
Romney: Thank you. It seems that the first victim of an Obama campaign is the truth. It has been sad and disappointing. Frankly, you know, when I became the presumptive nominee, the president called me and congratulated me on becoming the presumptive nominee, and said that America deserves an honest debate about the future course of the country, and I agreed.
I'm waiting to hear him begin that, because all we've heard so far is one attack after the other. And frankly they're typically not honest. There may be one in there that is. I keep looking for it, but it's been a disappointment
Yes
Side Score: 6
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No
Side Score: 8
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http://factcheck.org/2012/07/ Both sides have gone negative. For example, Romney never actually put in a vote to outlaw all abortion no matter what, this refers to a 2007 law that did not pass of course. However, Romney in an interview did state he would support such a bill at the time. Of course he changed his mind later... then named a VP who has his 2007 position. So not 100% accurate but based on something he actually said. In truth Romney did not personally kick that guy's wife off of the healthcare she had been paying into, this is the impression one commercial gives. However, Bane, which he was in charge of, did fire her. As the laws were before the Affordable Care Act this would of course lead to the death of someone with cancer even if they had been paying into it. Did Romney do it himself? No doubt he'd never heard of the woman. But through him it happened. So based on truth but misleading. You'll find the same general plot throughout most of the seemingly over the top negative ads. It's not equivalent though. Obama has never supported infanticide. That's just ridiculous but it's an ad that aired... might still be airing. Even the death of Osama has been brought into it by a Romney SuperPac. Something you'd think everyone would agree was a great day for everyone including the president. They are "swift boating" him in a sense, claiming that Obama said he killed Osama. He never did. In fact in every speach he never took credit and gave all credit to the military and the American people every single time. There's no proof Romney created any jobs at Bane, much less 100,000. In fact there is quite a bit of evidence Bane destroyed more jobs in the U.S. than it made. If it did create net jobs, they were likely overseas. The Affordable Care Act is not spiraling us into debt. Every estimate says it will save the country and individuals money once initial costs are taken care of... which are less then the war in Iraq. America has not lost jobs since Obama has been elected. Again, the exact opposite, jobs have been created, GDP is up, and while debt is up, it is increasing at a slower rate than the previous 8 years and is a lower percent of our GDP (the number that really matters). Then there are the ads where Obama is quoted out of context giving the exact opposite meaning than the intent. Like Romney's first commercial where the Romney quoted Obama saying in 2008 "if we make it about the economy we'll lose." - they implied he'd said that this year about himself. In fact he was speaking about the McCain campaign and saying that they had made the calculation that they could not talk about the economy or they would lose to Obama. The exact opposite of the intent. Or the now infamous "you didn't build that" quote which even permeated through CD. Of course I've explained to everyone here the obvious, that the "you didn't build that" refers to roads, bridges, schools all necessary to build the business. The Romney ads (and CD) have and are misrepresenting the intent, saying he was telling business owners they did not build that business. Completely false. Obama has not raised taxes. And he's only proposed raising taxes on the top 1%, and this only to the same levels they were prior to the Bush tax cut. Further the innuendos that people are paying more taxes now, and due to Obama, is also false. This is one of the lowest tax rates in the history of the U.S. So yeah, many of the Obama ads have extrapolated further than they can knowingly say is accurate. They haven't outright lied about a position, misquoted, or made up an issue that did not exist, so far anyway. Romney ads have done all of this. Side: Yes
Oops, forgot to address the quote from the arguement. The problem with that article is it is not quoting specifically which "lie" this would be based on. It is taking a random person's supposed quote and simply saying "that's not true therefore Obama lied." They skip the part where they make the connection from one to the other. Ignoring the problem with the article, my guess is somewhere there has aired an ad that claims Romney will raise taxes. Romney of couse has only said he will cut taxes. It is not baseless though. http://factcheck.org/2012/08/ If the tax cuts he does say he would enact were put in place, and at the same time debt were to be cut, even one of the authors of the plan admits more revenue must come from somewhere, and this is predicted to be the middle class since most of the cuts are focused on the rich and obviously the poor have little to pay. It could simply be the middle paying the same and the debt increasing at a faster pace, but there is a premise. Side: Yes
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Quite frankly, this is the argument that I hear the most: HUSSEIN. MUSLIM. KENYAN. BLACK. "Well, his middle name is Hussein, just like Saddam Hussein.... That's gotta mean something, right?" "Well, you know he's a Muslim, right?" "Well, you know he's Kenyan, right?" And when there aren't too many ears within listening distance, the N-word is still tossed around a bit. None of these have been proven to be true. And only one of them is a valid reason (at least Constitutionally) for him not to be President. Grant it, I'm not love with Obama, but so many straw men are tossed about that we almost never arrive at intelligent debate. Every now and then, someone will throw out an argument about The Affordable Care act. I'll accept that; that's at about ideas. But usually the argument is weak and trails off into the nonsensical. I just wish that both sides could be more substantive in their attacks. Side: Yes
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No, I don't trust any politicians I know of. And I think "the Truth" would have had to been there in the first place in order to be a victim; but Obama, like most politicians, based his campaign on lies and false promises from day one. So Romney is right. He's also a hypocrite, because he's just as untrustworthy and untruthful as Obama. Side: No
Obama is from the United States, though... One of the requirements for becoming the president is to be a natural-born citizen. If he hadn't been born here, it wouldn't make much sense... And if that did so happen to be the case, they'd be violating their own constution. Side: Yes
I used to trust him, but now he has shown us he is the boss and he can do whatever he wants to do since you put him in office. For the record I didn't vote for him, but many believers did and now they wish they had voted for the other candidate. If he manages to win again our country will go downhill because right now it's half way there and it's up to you to keep it from sliding all the way down. Vote against him in November and you have done something for your country. Like Kennedy said " Ask not what your country can do for you , but ask what you can do for your country " and you can do something positive by voting for Romney. Side: No
i do not trust president Obama look what he has done to America. He has put us in so much debt. Actions speak louder then words and Obama can not campain on what he did the last four years. The ecomony wasn't good when he got in but is is a lot worse now. If all you democrates would stop going on about what you feel is right and acted on it maybe we would be better off now. Oh wait i forgot your ideas are stupid. It is time to look at facts not opinions. If you pay attention to what obama has done and just look at cold hard facts you would know what i mean. Side: No
The ecomony wasn't good when he got in but is is a lot worse now. If all you democrates would stop going on about what you feel is right and acted on it maybe we would be better off now. Oh wait i forgot your ideas are stupid. It is time to look at facts not opinions. This is ignorance in such a blatant form, I really did laugh. How can you say the economy is worse then when Obama took over? We were losing 800,000 jobs A MONTH and now, in the last 29 months, we have created 4.5 million private sector jobs. This is a pretty stark difference, and honestly, I think thats just a wee bit better then when Obama took office. Now before you go on about the budget and how the stimulus sucked, lets check out those facts you know so much about. That stimulus saved 400,000 educator jobs (considering our educational rankings, we kinda need those) and countless other jobs. The only reason it didn’t work better was because it wasn’t enough (in terms of money). I mean really, look how well China’s doing, don’t you wish we did the same thing? Then contrast that to Europe’s economy (which tried more or less, those republican ideas by cutting government spending) which is so bad, it speaks for itself. Then look at our own history. Widely considered one our very best presidents, FDR created a program called the new deal, which also spent huge amounts of money to get the economy running. Funny thing is, this great president took over a decade to get the economy moving, and people are chastising Obama for an economy that will likely require an equal amount of time to fix (they are similar in their depth of economic tragedy, you know). Anyway, back to our ideas being stupid! In fact, we are so dumb that since 1961, we dems have created 42 million jobs and you republicans have created a meager 24 million! Man, we are the stupid ones, really! Oh wait, another part of our intelligence (or lack there of) has allowed us to create the only deficit reducing presidency since that same time period (thanks Bill)! Obama can not campain on what he did the last four years. He can, and whats more, can campaign on what was blocked in an attempt to make him fail. The partisanship created by the republicans was absurd, you can not create a committee (which Paul Ryan was on) to make a President fail, it is totally un-American. To jog your memory of a more recent example of this, republicans blocked a tax cut for small businesses ( profit of less than $500,000) which would obviously allow them a better chance to grow in tough economic times. Unless this indeed was part of the rhetoric to make him fail, it really creates doubt about their claimed prowess of the economy. Unless you can prove your own points with facts rather than speculation, which you yourself depone, then your commonality with your representatives will be a lack of depth in which you speak. Side: No
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